Wikipedia:Peer review/Stanley Holloway/archive1

Stanley Holloway
This peer review discussion has been closed. This article about the much-loved singer and actor (Doolittle in My Fair Lady) and monologist is mostly the work of User:Cassianto, with whose approval I am putting it forward for peer review. Cassianto has researched the subject widely, and, following some recent editing and additions by me and a very thorough copy editing by User:Ssilvers, the comments of Wiki-colleagues are sought, with a view to Cassianto's putting the article forward for promotion to GA in due course. Tim riley (talk) 07:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: This is an interesting article. I'm a bit busy, so my detailed review will have to be in instalments. Here is he first tranche:-


 * "He made early stage appearances before infantry service in the First World War, but his career took off after the war, as a member of a concert party, The Co-Optimists. The name of the concert party should be in quotes, not italicised. The sentence itself is awkwardly phrased, with a dubious "but"; "took off" is perhaps a little informal. I would suggest: "He made early stage appearances before infantry service in the First World War; after the war he joined a concert party, "The Co-Optimists", and his career began to flourish".
 * "in plays and on film" → "in plays and films"
 * Another sentence needing attention: "He appeared successfully in Shakespeare and in a series of films for Ealing Studios." Probaly "well-received" would be a better term than the subjective "successfully". The link t the biographical Shakespeare article is not appropriate here. I would reorder the sentence as: "He made well-received stage and film appearances in Shakespeare, and in a series of films for Ealing Studios."
 * "bringing him international fame" → "...and brought him international fame".
 * Early life
 * As much of the content is about family background, I recommend extending the section title to "Family background and early life"
 * Images should not be positioned opposite each other, thus squeezing the text. The picture of Millie is hardly relevantto this article and should be dropped. Personally, I don't think File:Stanley Holloway aged 10.JPG will be accepted ad PD in the US, unless you can show that it was first published before 1923.
 * "Maria C., Charles T. and George A" is an odd format for indicating names, at least in the UK. I'd drop the initials.
 * "George left Florence in 1905 and was never seen or heard of again by his family". I think "heard from" rather than "heard of". The sources give a date for his death, and I imagine family members became aware of that. Comma necessary after "1905".
 * Last paragraph: four sentences begin with "He..." which does not read well. The last sentence is a puzzle: it sounds as though he left his job to join the army, yet the next section indicates otherwise. Can you clarify? If possible the two very short sentences should be combined.
 * Early career & WW1
 * "with whom Holloway later starred with..."? One "with" too many. Also itaicisation ("The Co-optimists" again)
 * Was his stage career full time at this point? What was he "returning to the capital" for?
 * No need to specify that Milan is in Italy
 * "The war took him to France, where he fought in the trenches and helped bring down an enemy plane and capture the crew". This sounds a little glib, magaziney. Be a bit more precise about his role in "bringing down" an enemy aircraft, putting this incident into some sort of context, thus: "He fought in the trenches in France, on one occasion..."etc

Good! Thank you very much for these. I'll consult the editor chiefly responsible for the article and report back soonest. No rush for second tranche. Tim riley (talk) 07:39, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

More to come Brianboulton (talk) 10:04, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I have edited all of the points kindly raised by Brianboulton to the best of my ability and I have deleted the sentences "Dividing his time between Clacton on sea and the Capital" and "Bringing down the enemy plane and capturing the crew" as i cannot specify further. Both of these sentences are in the autobiography but SH did not elaborate further than that so I have removed them all together. Incidentally, the picture of SH aged 10 does have a line written directly underneath the photo stating "Here I am aged ten, the solemn, Eton collared Boy Soprano. The first rung..." If he was ten at this point then this would have been taken c. 1900/ 1901 well before 1923, this would be the only proof in order to date the photo. Cassianto (talk) 21:44, 3 May 2011 (UTC)